How to back up your data using common options
Data on your computer is the most critical thing you can own – I mean, think about it, it is hard to replace it (sometimes even impossible) and it can be important for numerous people. Let us assume that you keep all your financial records on your computer, and that a computer crash erases them all – you will need to make numerous trips to your financial attorney, ask him how you should deal with this situation before you start developing problems with your state.
Obviously this is just one awful case – another would be finding that all your wedding pictures have been erased because you were to busy to back them up a while ago, even if your wife kept telling you to make a series of DVDs. Nevertheless, catastrophes can be many – the important thing is to protect yourself from them, and not let them happen because you cannot perform a simple backup procedure. Within this article, we shall discuss about three simple, reliable methods to backup your files.
Backing up using USB Flash Drives
USB flash drives may not be your best choice as backup data storage; however, they are a useful mean of transporting data from one computer to another. This is not necessarily a storing option – but more of a fast-storing option – in other words, rather than spending time burning CDs you can use another computer for back up, and store the files using a flash drive as means of transportation.
Installation and operation of any USB flash drive is very simple, very often, you do not even have to install drivers since the OS acknowledges the drive as Plug and Play. Using a USB flash drive only needs an empty USB port on both computers and you can start your backup procedure.
Using Optical Media – CDs and DVDs
Back-up for quite a while know has been performed using CDs and DVDs. This type of backup is the most common since almost anyone does it occasionally because they want to save some space on their hard drive. Unbelievably, whenever you are removing your photos to a DVD you are actually backing them up, because you might want to look now and then, you do not completely erase them.
Nowadays, the price of any CD or DVD is not even worth mentioning – I would frankly recommend the use of DVD-R in your backup procedures since these are about 1.5 times the price of a CD, however, they have about 7 times the capacity of a mere CD. The use of Blu-Ray disks has become somewhat popular however; disks are rather expensive therefore, these are as cost-efficient as you might think.
Dual Layer DVD disks are a good option, since they allow you to burn about 16GB of data for twice or three times the price of a typical DVD. Remember however, that both CDs and DVDs are not infallible, therefore, if you want to store very important data, make sure you burn it in duplicate or even triplicate.
Backing up using external hard drives
External hard drives are the evolved version of the USB flash drive. While more expensive, they are able to provide reliable backup means, along with the fact that you can easily travel with about 1TB of data, without having to carry a bag of DVDs.
External hard drives are also resistant in time – they last more than DVDs, however, due to their writing option, data can be corrupted under the action of a virus or a worm, therefore make sure you protect your data from malware before storing it for backup purposes. External hard drives are also more expensive than USB flash drives or a bundle of DVDs with a price varying based on manufacturer and capacity.